Page 103 of Under the Weatherman
“What would you add if we had a list together?” Bas asked Chelsea.
“Cook me an entire Thanksgiving dinner?”
Typical. We all laughed at Chelsea’s one-track foody mind, but Bas didn’t let the opportunity pass. “I’d love to cook you Thanksgiving dinner. This Thursday?” He frowned. “Oh, but you’re probably going home to be with your mom.”
“No. Not this year.” They worked out logistics, then Chelsea said, “What about you guys? Could you both make it?”
Evan said, “I’d love to. I have to work Friday, so I’m stuck in town anyway.”
“It sounds fun. I’m in.” Of course I’d be there. Ever since my parents started taking off on world cruises, I found myself homeless most holidays. “But why aren’t you going home, Chelsea? You usually do.”
“I think my mom has a new boyfriend. She canceled on me.”
My pity party cut short. My parents might be physically away, but Chelsea would have fared better if she’d been an orphan. “Jesus. I’m sorry.”
Evan stood and held his hand out to me. “Come on. We’ve got a hayride to cross off our list.”
“Your list of two items?” Chelsea chided.
I glared at her. “We’re working on it.”
While Chelsea and Bas grabbed a couple of baskets, presumably to pick apples for a decadent pie, Evan and I strolled to the ticket window, just in time to climb onto the back of a hay wagon that smelled of diesel and sounded like a rocket ship. Any thoughts of having a real conversation while touring an apple orchard were drowned out by the rumbling of the motor.
“I haven’t done this since I was a kid,” Evan yelled.
“Me neither.” In fact, I wasn’t sure I ever had.
Evan took a seat beside a woman wearing an enormous pair of sunglasses, speaking in a language I didn’t know. “This is probably the most wholesome activity we could have ever imagined, huh?”
I squished beside him on the hay bale. “We could see if they offer square dancing, later.”
“What?”
“Square dancing,” I yelled.
The tractor lurched forward, and the wagon jerked a second later. Everyone cried out, arms flailing for purchase, and then the momentum caught up, and we all laughed at the surprise jolt as the ride smoothed out. Evan looped his arm through mine, and we jostled along.
It was hard to believe it had been less than twenty-four hours since I’d walked out on him, and I was glad he’d apologized for the right reasons, but I worried I was always going to be on my guard for the next thing that might set him off. After all, Chelsea liked to point out that her asshole dad had managed to charm her mom. But what if there’d been warning signs from the start? Was I wasting my time on a flawed person?
The thing was, when I wasn’t thinking like Chelsea, I didn’t see Evan as flawed. I saw him like someone who’d gotten a shock of electricity every time he’d touched a doorknob, and now he was effectively locked out, afraid to turn the handle. I could open the door for him, but it was up to him to come through.
I leaned against him, enjoying the breeze in my hair, a whisper of winter in the air. We bumped into each other, laughing at every surprisingly bouncy dip. This whole ride was a weird metaphor for our relationship so far.
As it came to a halt, Evan said, “Well, I guess for seven bucks, I shouldn’t have expected much.”
“Thank God it wasn’t longer,” said a woman, holding her hip.
I stretched, breathing in the fall air to calm my nerves, bracing myself for everything that still needed saying. I would not chicken out. “Come with me.”
The orchard sloped down the side of the mountain, row upon row, with paths between. A couple of girls giggled as they passed us, one calling, “Keep giving the sexy weather,” as if she’d been put up to a dare and now they had to flee the scene of the crime. Evan stiffened and gripped my hand.
Chelsea and Bas were somewhere out here, but the lane we turned down was deserted. Evan reached up to pluck an apple, examining it like it was the root of all evil.
I looked around for an abandoned basket, not wanting to get in trouble for stealing. “Here.” I took the apple from him and dropped it in. “Did you want to pick apples?”
He shook his head, laughing, like he hadn’t even realized he’d entered into a commercial venture with the orchard. “I wouldn’t even know what to do with them.”
“Juggle?”
